sane-mustek - SANE backend for Mustek flatbed scanners


DESCRIPTION

       The  sane-mustek library implements a SANE (Scanner Access
       Now Easy) backend that provides access to Mustek (and some
       relabeled  Trust)  flatbed scanners.  At present, the fol­
       lowing scanners are known to work more or less  with  this
       backend:

              Paragon MFS-6000CX
              Paragon MFS-12000CX
              Paragon MFC-600S, 600 II CD, ScanMagic 600 II SP
              Paragon MFC-800S, 800 II SP
              Paragon MFS-6000SP
              Paragon MFS-8000SP
              Paragon MFS-1200SP, MFS-12000SP
              ScanExpress 6000SP
              ScanExpress 12000SP, 12000SP Plus, Paragon 1200 III
              SP, ScanMagic 9636S, 9636S Plus
              Paragon 1200 LS
              ScanExpress A3 SP
              Paragon 1200 SP Pro
              Paragon 1200 A3 Pro
              Paragon 600 II N
              Trust Imagery 1200 SP
              Trust Imagery 4800 SP
              Trust SCSI Connect 19200

       More details can be found on the Mustek  backend  homepage
       http://www.meier-geinitz.de/sane/.

       Don't  mix  up  MFS (Paragon), Pro and ScanExpress models!
       They're completely different. Check the exact model  name!

       Note  that  most  of  the  above scanners come with a SCSI
       interface.  The only non-SCSI scanner that has  some  sup­
       port  at  this  point  is the 600 II N scanner which comes
       with its own parallel port  adapter  (i.e.,  it  does  not
       attach  to the printer port).  More info on how to use the
       600 II N can be found below in section PARAGON 600  II  N.
       Other  parallel  port  scanners  are not supported by this
       backend but you may be successful using the Mustek  paral­
       lel  port  backend  (mustek_pp). USB scanners are not sup­
       ported by this backend by now.

       Mustek scanners have no protection against  exceeding  the
       physical  scan  area  height.   That  is,  if  a  scan  is
       attempted with a height that exceeds  the  height  of  the
       scan  surface,  the  scanner begins making loud noises and
       the scan mechanism may be damaged.  Thus, if you hear such
       a  noise, IMMEDIATELY turn off the scanner. This shouldn't
       happen if your scanner is in the list of  known  scanners.
       There       is      more      information      in      the


       If you own a Mustek (or Trust) scanner other than the ones
       listed  above  that works with this backend, please let us
       know by sending the scanner's exact model  name  (look  at
       the  front  and back of the scanner) and a debug output to
       sane-devel@mostang.com.  You can get the debug  output  by
       setting  the  environment  variable SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK to 5
       and  showing  the  list   of   available   scanners   with
       scanimage -L  . Please send all of it to the mailing list.
       You must be subscribed to sane-devel before you  can  send
       mail           to          the          list.          See
       http://www.mostang.com/sane/mail.html for details.


DEVICE NAMES

       This backend expects device names of the form:

              special

       Where special is either  the  path-name  for  the  special
       device that corresponds to a SCSI scanner or the port num­
       ber at which the 600  II  N  can  be  found  (see  section
       PARAGON  600  II N below).  For SCSI scanners, the special
       device name must be a generic SCSI device or a symlink  to
       such  a  device.   The  program sane-find-scanner helps to
       find out the correct device. Under Linux,  such  a  device
       name  could  be  /dev/sga  or  /dev/sge, for example.  See
       sane-scsi(5) for details.


CONFIGURATION

       The contents of the mustek.conf file is a list of  options
       and  device  names  that  correspond  to  Mustek scanners.
       Empty lines and lines starting with a hash  mark  (#)  are
       ignored.   See sane-scsi(5) on details of what constitutes
       a valid device name.

       The supported options are  linedistance-fix,  lineart-fix,
       legal-size buffersize, blocksize, strip-height, and force-
       wait

       Options come in two flavors: global and  positional  ones.
       Global options apply to all devices managed by the backend
       whereas positional options apply just to the most recently
       mentioned  device.  Note that this means that the order in
       which the options appear matters!

       Option linedistance-fix is positional and works  around  a
       problem  that  occurs  with some SCSI controllers (notably
       the ncr810 controller under Linux).  If color  scans  have
       horizontal  stripes  and/or  the colors are off, then it's
       likely that your controller  suffers  from  this  problem.
       Turning on this option usually fixes the problem.

       problem that seems to exist with certain MFS-12000SP scan­
       ners.   The problem manifests itself in dropped lines when
       scanning in lineart mode.  Turning on this  option  should
       fix the problem but may slow down scanning a bit.

       Option  legal-size  is positional and sets the size of the
       scan area to Legal format. Set this option if  you  own  a
       Paragon  12000  LS.  It can't be distinguished by software
       from a ScanExpress 12000 SP (ISO A4 format).

       Option buffersize is a positional  option  that  overrides
       the default value set for the size of the SCSI buffer. The
       buffer size is specified in kilobytes. The  default  value
       is  128.  Because  of double buffering the buffer actually
       sent to the scanner is half the size of this value. Try to
       increase  this  value  to achieve higher scan speeds. Note
       that some ScanExpress scanners  don't  like  buffer  sizes
       above  64  kb  (buffersize = 128). If your sg driver can't
       set SCSI buffer sizes at runtime you may  have  to  change
       that value, too. See sane-scsi(5) for details.

       Option blocksize is a positional option that overrides the
       default value set for the maximum amount of  data  scanned
       in  one  block. The buffer size is specified in kilobytes.
       Some scanners freeze if this value is  bigger  than  2048.
       The  default  value  is 1 GB (so effectively no limit) for
       most scanners. Don't change this value if you  don't  know
       exactly what you do.

       Option  strip-height  is  a  global option that limits the
       maximum height of the strip scanned  with  a  single  SCSI
       read  command.   The height is specified in inches and may
       contain a fractional part (e.g., 1.5).  Setting the strip-
       height  to  a  small value (one inch, for example) reduces
       the likelihood of encountering problems with  SCSI  driver
       timeouts  and/or  timeouts  with other devices on the same
       SCSI bus.  Unfortunately, it also  increases  scan  times.
       Thus, if the scanner is the only device on the SCSI bus it
       is connected to and if it is known that  the  SCSI  driver
       does not suffer from premature timeouts, it is recommended
       to increase the strip-height or  remove  the  option  com­
       pletely,  which  corresponds  to an infinite strip height.
       See sane-scsi(5) on how to avoid problems with SCSI  time­
       outs.

       Finally,  force-wait is a global option. If set, the back­
       end will wait until the device is ready before sending the
       inquiry  command.  Further more the backend will force the
       scan slider to return to its starting position (not imple­
       mented  for  all  scanners).  This option may be necessary
       with the 600 II N or when scanimage is used multiple times
       (e.g. in scripts). The default is off (not set).


              # limit strip height of all scanners to 1.5 inches:
              option strip-height 1.5

              /dev/scanner    # first Mustek scanner
                # 1 MB buffer for /dev/scanner:
                option buffersize 1024
              /dev/sge        # second Mustek scanner
                # turn on fixes for /dev/sge:
                option lineart-fix
                option linedistance-fix


SCSI ADAPTER TIPS

       Mustek SCSI scanners are typically delivered with  an  ISA
       SCSI  adapter.   Unfortunately,  that adapter is not worth
       much since it is not interrupt driven.  It is  (sometimes)
       possible  to  get  the  supplied card to work, but without
       interrupt line, scanning will be very slow and put so much
       load  on  the  system, that it becomes almost unusable for
       other tasks.

       If you already have a working SCSI controller in your sys­
       tem,  you should consider that Mustek scanners do not sup­
       port the SCSI-2 disconnect/reconnect  protocol  and  hence
       tie  up  the  SCSI  bus while a scan is in progress.  This
       means that no other SCSI device on the  same  bus  can  be
       accessed while a scan is in progress.

       Because  the Mustek-supplied adapter is not worth much and
       because Mustek scanners do not support the SCSI-2  discon­
       nect/reconnect  protocol,  it  is recommended to install a
       separate (cheap) SCSI controller for Mustek scanners.  For
       example,  ncr810  based  cards  are known to work fine and
       cost as little as fifty US dollars.

       For Mustek scanners, it is typically necessary to  config­
       ure  the  low-level  SCSI  driver  to  disable synchronous
       transfers, tagged command queuing, and target disconnects.
       See sane-scsi(5) for driver and platform-specific informa­
       tion.

       The ScanExpress models have sometimes  trouble  with  high
       resolution color mode. If you encounter sporadic corrupted
       images (parts duplicated or shifted horizontally) kill all
       other applications before scanning and (if sufficient mem­
       ory is available) disable swapping.


PARAGON 600 II N

       This backend has support for the Paragon 600 II N parallel
       port  scanner.   Note that this scanner comes with its own
       ISA card that implements a funky parallel port  (in  other

       allel port).

       This scanner can be configured by listing the port  number
       of  the  adapter in the mustek.conf file.  Valid port num­
       bers are 0x26b, 0x2ab, 0x2eb, 0x22b, 0x32b, 0x36b,  0x3ab,
       0x3eb.   Pick  one  that  doesn't  conflict with the other
       hardware in your computer. Put only one number on a single
       line. Example:

       0x3eb

       Note that for this scanner root privileges are required to
       access the I/O ports.  Thus, either make frontends such as
       scanimage(1)  and xscanimage(1) setuid root (generally not
       recommended for safety reasons) or, alternatively,  access
       this  backend through the network daemon saned(1). On sys­
       tems which  support  this  feature,  the  scanner  can  be
       accessed  through  /dev/port.   Don't forget to adjust the
       permissions for /dev/port.  At  least  with  recent  Linux
       kernels   root  privileges  are  necessary  for  /dev/port
       access, too.

       If your images have  horizontal  stripes  in  color  mode,
       check  option  linedistance-fix  (see  above).  Apply this
       option for a scanner with firmware version 2.x and disable
       it for version 1.x.

       If  the  Mustek  backend  blocks while sending the inqiury
       command to the  scanner,  add  the  option  force-wait  to
       mustek.conf.

       Also note that after a while of no activity, some scanners
       themself (not the  SANE  backend)  turns  off  their  CCFL
       lamps. This shutdown is not always perfect with the result
       that the lamp sometimes continues to  glow  dimly  at  one
       end.  This doesn't appear to be dangerous since as soon as
       you use the scanner again, the lamp turns back on  to  the
       normal  high  brightness. However, the first image scanned
       after such a shutdown may have stripes and  appear  to  be
       over-exposed.   When this happens, just take another scan,
       and the image will be fine.


FILES

       /etc/sane.d/mustek.conf
              The backend configuration file (see  also  descrip­
              tion of SANE_CONFIG_DIR below).

       /usr/lib/sane/libsane-mustek.a
              The static library implementing this backend.

       /usr/lib/sane/libsane-mustek.so
              The   shared   library  implementing  this  backend



ENVIRONMENT

       SANE_CONFIG_DIR
              This  environment  variable  specifies  the list of
              directories  that  may  contain  the  configuration
              file.  Under UNIX, the directories are separated by
              a colon (`:'), under OS/2, they are separated by  a
              semi-colon (`;').  If this variable is not set, the
              configuration  file  is  searched  in  two  default
              directories:  first,  the current working directory
              (".") and then in /etc/sane.d.  If the value of the
              environment  variable ends with the directory sepa­
              rator character, then the default  directories  are
              searched  after  the  explicitly specified directo­
              ries.   For  example,  setting  SANE_CONFIG_DIR  to
              "/tmp/config:"    would   result   in   directories
              "tmp/config", ".", and "/etc/sane.d" being searched
              (in this order).

       SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK
              If  the  library  was  compiled  with debug support
              enabled, this  environment  variable  controls  the
              debug  level for this backend.  Higher debug levels
              increase the verbosity of the output.

              Value  Descsription
              0      no output
              1      print fatal errors
              2      print important messages
              3      print non-fatal errors and less important messages
              4      print all but debugging messages
              5      print everything

              Example:
              export SANE_DEBUG_MUSTEK=4


SEE ALSO

       sane(7),        sane-find-scanner(1),        sane-scsi(5),
       sane-mustek_pp(5)


AUTHOR

       David  Mosberger, Andreas Czechanowski, Andreas Bolsch (SE
       extensions), Henning Meier-Geinitz


BUGS

       Scanning with the SCSI adapters supplied by Mustek is very
       slow at high resolutions and wide scanareas.

       Some  scanners  (e.g.  Paragon  1200 A3 + Pro, SE A3) need
       more testing.

       More detailed bug information is available at  the  Mustek



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